The whole would probably not fill the ranks of even an English half-battalion,yet there are a surprising number above the average in sense,knowledge,and manners.The trouble (for Samoa)is that they are all here after a livelihood.Some are sharp practitioners,some are famous (justly or not)for foul play in business.Tales fly.One merchant warns you against his neighbour;the neighbour on the first occasion is found to return the compliment:each with a good circumstantial story to the proof.There is so much copra in the islands,and no more;a man's share of it is his share of bread;and commerce,like politics,is here narrowed to a focus,shows its ugly side,and becomes as personal as fisticuffs.Close at their elbows,in all this contention,stands the native looking on.Like a child,his true analogue,he observes,apprehends,misapprehends,and is usually silent.As in a child,a considerable intemperance of speech is accompanied by some power of secrecy.News he publishes;his thoughts have often to be dug for.He looks on at the rude career of the dollar-hunt,and wonders.He sees these men rolling in a luxury beyond the ambition of native kings;he hears them accused by each other of the meanest trickery;he knows some of them to be guilty;and what is he to think?He is strongly conscious of his own position as the common milk-cow;and what is he to do?"Surely these white men on the beach are not great chiefs?"is a common question,perhaps asked with some design of flattering the person questioned.And one,stung by the last incident into an unusual flow of English,remarked to me:"I begin to be weary of white men on the beach."But the true centre of trouble,the head of the boil of which Samoa languishes,is the German firm.From the conditions of business,a great island house must ever be an inheritance of care;and it chances that the greatest still afoot has its chief seat in Apia bay,and has sunk the main part of its capital in the island of Upolu.When its founder,John Caesar Godeffroy,went bankrupt over Russian paper and Westphalian iron,his most considerable asset was found to be the South Sea business.This passed (I understand)through the hands of Baring Brothers in London,and is now run by a company rejoicing in the Gargantuan name of the DEUTSCHE HANDELSUND PLANTAGEN GESELLSCHAFT FUR SUD-SEE INSELN ZU HAMBURG.This piece of literature is (in practice)shortened to the D.H.and P.
G.,the Old Firm,the German Firm,the Firm,and (among humorists)the Long Handle Firm.Even from the deck of an approaching ship,the island is seen to bear its signature -zones of cultivation showing in a more vivid tint of green on the dark vest of forest.
The total area in use is near ten thousand acres.Hedges of fragrant lime enclose,broad avenues intersect them.You shall walk for hours in parks of palm-tree alleys,regular,like soldiers on parade;in the recesses of the hills you may stumble on a mill-house,tolling and trembling there,fathoms deep in superincumbent forest.On the carpet of clean sward,troops of horses and herds of handsome cattle may be seen to browse;and to one accustomed to the rough luxuriance of the tropics,the appearance is of fairyland.The managers,many of them German sea-captains,are enthusiastic in their new employment.Experiment is continually afoot:coffee and cacao,both of excellent quality,are among the more recent outputs;and from one plantation quantities of pineapples are sent at a particular season to the Sydney markets.
A hundred and fifty thousand pounds of English money,perhaps two hundred thousand,lie sunk in these magnificent estates.In estimating the expense of maintenance quite a fleet of ships must be remembered,and a strong staff of captains,supercargoes,overseers,and clerks.These last mess together at a liberal board;the wages are high,and the staff is inspired with a strong and pleasing sentiment of loyalty to their employers.
Seven or eight hundred imported men and women toil for the company on contracts of three or of five years,and at a hypothetical wage of a few dollars in the month.I am now on a burning question: